Peace activists charged with trespassing at lab

Five peace activists were charged with trespassing yesterday at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory near Columbia, Howard County police said.

Demonstrators -- members of the Baltimore Emergency Response Network (BERN) -- were handing out leaflets protesting the facility's weapons research and refused to leave the grounds about 10 a.m. when asked to by laboratory officials, police said. The lab is in the 11100 block of Johns Hopkins Road.

Police said that several protesters did comply with the officials' request.

Each could be sentenced to a maximum of 90 days in jail and fined up to $500 for trespassing in an incident that has become a familiar form of protest for the group.

Two other BERN members were charged with trespassing in April and July. Police said they were handing out leaflets asking Applied Physics Laboratory employees to publicly repudiate the lab's research.

Charges against one protester, Richard Ochs of Baltimore, were dropped in Howard District Court last week. The other activist, Max Obuszewski of Baltimore, is scheduled for a District Court trial in December.

BERN has staged protests at the lab the past few years, resulting in trespassing convictions for several members.